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Basil Newton

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Sir Basil Cochrane Newton KCMG (25 July 1889 – 15 May 1965) was a British diplomat who was ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Iraq.

Newton was the youngest son of George Onslow Newton and his third wife, Lady Alice Cochrane, daughter of the 11th Earl of Dundonald. He was educated at Wellington College and King’s College, Cambridge. He joined the Foreign Office in 1912 and served in Peking 1925–29, then in Berlin 1930–37, for the last two years with the rank of Minister[1] and chargé d'affaires in the absence of the ambassador, Sir Eric Phipps.

In 1937 Newton was appointed Minister (equivalent to ambassador) at Prague, where

the most momentous though to him probably the least agreeable task of his career was to present to President Beneš of Czechoslovakia in September, 1938, the decision of the British and French Governments that he must hand over the Sudeten area to Germany or forfeit all hope of support from the two western powers.[2]

One Newton's s suppressors as minister to Prague, Sir Joseph Addison, had strong anti-Czech prejudices as his only local friends he made during his 6 years in Prague from 1930 to 1936 were members of the ethnic German nobility of Bohemia, who were adversely affected by the land reforms of the 1920s when the Czechoslovak government had broken up the estates of the nobility to give the ethnic Czech farmers who worked the estates ownership of the land.[3] The aristocracy of Bohemia who were German-speaking, Roman Catholic and still loyal to former Austrian empire disliked Czechoslovakia, a state that was republican, secular and dominated by ethnic Czechs, and Addison had largely adopted their prejudices as his own. Addison's dispatches to London, which had portrayed the ethnic Germans of the Sudetenland as being oppressed by boorish and crude Czechs, had largely convinced the Foreign Office that it was the Czechs who were causing all the problems in Czechoslovakia, and Newton had arrived in Prague in 1937 already convinced of the justice of the complaints of the Sudeten Germans.[4] Furthermore, like most of the British elite during the interwar period, Newton believed that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh on Germany and needed to be revised in favor of the Reich, which had made him very sympathetic towards Nazi Germany and hostile to Czechoslovakia.[3] The only thing that Newton appeared to have taken away from his time as the chargé d'affaires at the British Embassy in Berlin in 1935-36 was that the Treaty of Versailles was intolerably harsh on Germany and needed to be revised if the peace of Europe was to be saved.[3]

President Edvard Beneš of Czechoslovakia disliked Newton, calling him a "thick-headed ignoramus" who knew nothing of Central Europe, and was an arrogant Germanophile to boot, complaining that he always took the side of Germany against his own country.[5] Beneš much preferred the company of Victor de Laçroix, the pro-Czech and anti-German French minister in Prague, who in his dispatches to Paris tended to take Czechoslovakia's side against Germany. Sir Robert Vansittart, the Germanophobic and Francophile Permanent Undersecretary at the Foreign Office from 1930-1937 and Special Diplomatic Adviser from 1937-1941, often criticised Newton for the pro-German tone of his dispatches to London.[5] Shiela Grant Duff, the Central European correspondent of The Observer, wrote that how she been "terribly depressed by the cynical and uncaring attitude of my fellow countrymen", writing that after meeting Newton that she had found he was completely convinced of the thesis that the Treaty of Versailles had challenged the "natural" dynamic of Central Europe by putting the Czechs on top of the Germans, and it was Britain's duty to restore the natural state of things by putting the Germans on top of the Czechs.[6] However, Bruce Lockhart during a visit to Prague in the spring of 1938 wrote that Newton:

"...knew both the Czech and German points of view. A descendant of Cochrane, he has much of that great admiral's phlegm...Shrewd in judgement and tactful in manner, he possesses an almost judicial impartiality, a quality valuable in a diplomatist, essential in a country like Czechoslovakia, and unfortunately not possessed by all previous British ministers in Prague. Basil Newton, I felt, was a sound man for a delicate and most difficult mission".[5]

Lockhart praised the British legation in Prague as being "exotically furnished" with Chinese art that Newton had purchased during his time as a diplomat in Beijing, stating Newton was a man who knew Chinese art very well.[7] Newton spoke both German and Czech, but preferred the company of Konrad Henlein whom saw as a more reasonable man than President Beneš.[7]

Newton often made racist statements in his dispatches portraying the Czechs as vulgar and stupid Slavs who were not capable of running a state. In one dispatch to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, Newton wrote that the Czechs had a "temperamental obstinacy" which made them incapable of compromising with the Sudeten Germans, stating that Czechoslovakia was becoming "more untenable every day".[8] Newton attacked Czechoslovakia for making an alliance with France, which he presented as one of the root causes of all the problems in relations between Prague and Berlin, writing whether "a permanent solution can be expected unless Czechoslovakia is, if not to give up her existing alliance with France, at least to challenge its character".[8] Newton argued that the best solution for the problems in Central Europe was to Czechoslovakia to renounce its alliances with France, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Romania, which would turn Czechoslovakia into "a kind of sanctuary or reserved area immunised against aggression".[8] The British historian Peter Neville wrote that through Newton professed to be trying to turn Czechoslovakia into a neutral state like Switzerland with his call for Czechoslovakia to give up all of its alliances, but one result of his plan for neutralisation would have been to weaken Czechoslovakia in regards to Germany by depriving it of its alliances.[8]

On 15 March 1938, Newton wrote in a dispatch to London: "If I am right in thinking that Czechoslovakia's present political position is not permanently tenable, it will be no kindness in the long run to try and maintain her in it".[9] Newton believed that main Sudeten German leader, Konrad Henlein, was a "moderate" who was only asking for autonomy for the Sudetenland area, and that President Beneš by insisting on maintaining the unitary nature of the Czechoslovakia instead of agreeing to British plans to turn Czechoslovakia into a federation with various ethnic groups having autonomy, was the principle source of the tensions within Czechoslovakia.[10] Newton's repeated statements in his dispatches that Czechoslovakia with its mixture of Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, and Magyars, would not last as an unitary state and needed to become a federation as that was Czechoslovakia's hope of survival did much to influence British decision-makers in London.[10] Lord Halifax cited Newton's analysis in cabinet meetings, asking what was the point go to war to defend a state that Czechoslovakia that was doomed to break up sooner or later.[10]

On 9 May 1938, Newton told the Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Kamil Krofta that it was the view of H.M Government that it "would be very difficult to defend Czechoslovakia" and even if Britain did come to Czechoslovakia's aid in the event of a German attack it "would still have to be decided whether the Czechoslovak State could be re-established in its present form".[6] Newton told Krofta bluntly that Britain did not "bluff" and that British public opinion would not supporting going to war with Germany to keep the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia.[6] In the spring of 1938, Newton formed an alliance with Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador in Berlin, to work together to persuade decision-makers in London to side with Germany against Czechoslovakia.[11] When Henderson sent Newton a private letter praising him for his pro-German dispatches on 19 May 1938, the latter replied with a letter saying he hoped Henderson would "be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and when that is done, I hope I may receive honorable mention. You have much the hardest job".[11]

In 1939 he was transferred as ambassador to Baghdad.[12] "Soon after the Second World War began serious trouble broke out in Iraq. Newton was essentially a European and had no experience of the Middle East and its languages, but he gained and retained throughout the crisis the complete confidence of the Regent, Emir Abdul Ilah."[2] In 1941 he was recalled to London and served there until he retired in 1946.

Newton was appointed CMG in 1929[13] and knighted KCMG in the 1939 New Year Honours.[14]

References

  • NEWTON, Sir Basil Cochrane, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2016 (online edition, Oxford University Press, 2015)
  • Neville, Peter "Nevile Henderson and Basil Newton: Two British Envoys in the Czech Crisis 1938" pages 258-275 from The Munich Crisis, 1938 Prelude to World War II edited by Erik Goldstein and Igor Lukes, London: Frank Cass, 1999.

Notes

  1. ^ "No. 34194". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 August 1935. p. 5529.
  2. ^ a b "Sir Basil Newton". obituary. The Times. No. 56323. London. 17 May 1965. p. 14. template uses deprecated parameter(s) (help)
  3. ^ a b c Neville 1999, p. 259.
  4. ^ Neville 1999, p. 261.
  5. ^ a b c Neville 1999, p. 262.
  6. ^ a b c Neville 1999, p. 266.
  7. ^ a b Neville 1999, p. 270.
  8. ^ a b c d Neville 1999, p. 265.
  9. ^ Neville 1999, p. 262-263.
  10. ^ a b c Neville 1999, p. 263.
  11. ^ a b Neville 1999, p. 268.
  12. ^ "No. 34711". The London Gazette. 17 October 1939. p. 6948.
  13. ^ "No. 33472". The London Gazette (Supplement). 26 February 1929. p. 1435.
  14. ^ "No. 34585". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1938. p. 6.
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Prague
1937–1939 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Bagdad
1939–1941 		Succeeded by
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